Cochran Community Education Review, 1

Katie Cochran
Spring 2016
LEAD 7100
Dr. Griswold
Community Education Review

Imagine a school setting that catered to the students all day everyday. In fact, imagine a
school that was created out of the minds of four former counselors and educators at public k-12

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schools when they realized that the public school system, though a good system, couldnt
completely offer what a certain percentage of their community needed. If you cant imagine this
happening, or it sounds like Hollywood; rethink! The Phoenix School for Creative Learning is a
community education organization that has one pertinent goal: take students with learning
disabilities, have them learn the same curriculum that they would learn at public schools; yet
teach it to them in a way that embraces the way that they think, the way that they act, and allow
that to guide the measures that are taken to teach them.
Chapter four of the textbook Research Methods for Community Change by
Randy Stoecker, Stoecker (2013) implements and evaluates the cycle of project-based research.
There are four steps that need to be taken to be on the path to success: diagnose the condition or
problem in a community; prescribe a solution that will impact the diagnosed condition;
implement the policies that are found in the prescribe stage, and then evaluate the project as it
has taken shape and is being formally used (p.83-86).
The Phoenix school performed all of these steps over 20 years ago when it began in 1993.
The first step was to diagnose the community and the problem, in which the director was
working at a public school alongside three of her colleagues when she would take student with
learning disabilities, alter the manner in which they were taught (using a lot of art, different
textbooks, etc..) and realized that these students that the school system deemed to not be able to
function in a regular classroom, thus sending them to special education courses. The problem
with this was that this group of educators and counselors could see that these students didnt
have to be removed from the main sector of the school, but instead just needed to have their
brain tapped in a different manner.

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The second stage, prescribing, came when the educators came together and realized that
using high volumes of arts and individualized curriculums were highly beneficial to the students.
They began pulling the students out of their courses and taking them into different rooms and
teaching them about things using plays, musicals and other forms of art. Immediately, the
students perked up, began to remember what was being taught, and actually excelled in
academics for the first time in their life.
The third stage, implementing, happened in 1993 when the four educators broke apart
from the public school system and created The Phoenix School for Creative Learning.
They became state accredited and offer their own diploma recognized by colleges, universities,
the military, and jobs. They opened their doors and have maintained accreditation, have garnered
a positive name for themselves in the community to the point of even being referred by
psychologists and therapists that work with students with learning disabilities.
The fourth and final state, evaluating, has evolved over the last 30 years for the school.
When the school first opened, it was only for middle school through twelfth grade. As they
evaluated their community, they found that the earlier they reach their community with their
teaching styles, the better the community could grow and learn using those styles. Thus, they
expanded their accreditation and ages they teach down to second grade. While they are unsure if
they will go lower than second grade, they feel fully able to accept and take in second graders
and have them complete their full years of schooling and to leave fully prepared to enter
secondary education, the military, or a job.
I attended around one and a half hour out of a normal day for them and spend 30 minutes
sitting in a hallway that looked into a room and watched the students as they learned how to
write a business letter, then spoke with the director for 30 minutes, and then went on a tour

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around the house that they have renovated into a school, meeting the students and the other
teachers. As I observed the community, the students with learning disabilities, I found that each
student is given the opportunity to fully be themselves without judgement all the while working
towards a high school diploma, something that they may have given up on if not offered a spot in
the community of the Phoenix school. Some of the students have social anxieties and keep their
face covered so that noone can see them, while other students suffer from autism, and others
suffer from less or more severe learning disabilities ranging from dyslexia to ADD and ADHD.
While they all suffer from different disorders, they are being taught the same things while being
taught in different manners that allow each student to learn at his or her own pace.
Myles Horton (1998) spoke in chapter twelve of The Long Haul about reaching
students in their own manner. The Highlander school was already functioning when a religious
missionary came to the school in efforts to learn and come back with renewed knowledge. As he
was used to, he preached to the students of the highlander, and as he preached to them, he was
disappointed at the lack of respect he was shown by the student. Myles Horton writes in his text:
Later that day the students came to me and said Get rid of that guy!, and as Myles Horton
explains, it was due to him not listening to the students or conversing with them, but instead
trying to get them to do all of the listening and no conversing. Horton had to explain to Kermit
that these students were a different form of students, they wanted to be included in the
discussions and that the education was geared towards them. As soon as Kermit realized this,
Horton informs the reader a few lines down that Kermit became one of the schools most ardent
champions (p. 150-152).
As I watched the students interact with the teachers, their small class sizes, their ability to
fully be themselves, and their relationships forming with their peers; I couldnt help but to think

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of that story from Horton. The atmosphere at the Phoenix school imitated that aspect of the
Highlander school, and the community at the Phoenix school felt just as the community at
highlander: for the first time in their life, free and safe.
The Phoenix school for Creative Learning currently has twenty four students, all of
whom are planning to take a different route in their life. Some will go to college, some will get a
job, or some may join the military; just like the students that left the Highlander. Horton often
spoke of his former students of the Highlander that went off to do great things in life and make
ripples across their own communities; and as I spoke with Peggy Morris, the director of the
Phoenix School for Creative Learning, I was offered the same positive glimpse into community
education that Horton allows his readers to see. She informed me that they had former students
all across the nation, some at Rhodes College, Temple University, two are Marines and one that
is in the United States Naval Academy.
While community education varies from organization to organization, the resemblances
between community education organizations discussed in our texts are summed in in a real life
program right here in Memphis, Tennessee at the Phoenix School. I was offered a true glimpse
into the world of community education as I sat and observed the course of business letter writing,
when I realized that community education doesnt have to take place in the midst of a civil rights
era, or in the midst of the poverty stricken Appalachian Mountains; but it can instead take place
in the middle of the suburbs for a group of peers that are often overlooked, not offered respect,
and misunderstood at times.
One of the students that I spoke with was a 7th grade male who, at the time of my
interview and tour, was visibly upset. When I spoke with him, he informed me that it was due to
his mother forgetting to pack his favorite pencil in his backpack. While he couldnt fully

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comprehend that being upset over a pencil wasnt fully rational, I was able to speak with him and
hear from him first hand that when he gets upset, he sometimes cant understand my anger, but
at least I know that when I cant I'm not at my old school where I just got in trouble every time.
What stood out to me as he spoke these words to me, a complete stranger, was the amount of
peace he had despite being upset. Community education has a nature to it that allows the
community being affected to (sometimes) for the first time ever, feel cared for and loved. In that
moment, I was able to see the true effect that the Phoenix school has on its students.
One other example was of a young lady that suffered from a severe social anxiety
disorder that felt a paranoia about being seeing her face. She walked around the school with her
hair in her face and a hand-held fan in front of her hair. In the middle of my interview with the
director, the young lady walked into the office we were in and peeked her eyes through their hair
and fan. While her disorder caused her to not speak in front of me, the director stopped the
interview to interact with her. She smiled, asked her a joking question, and even offered her a
seat. Within a few minutes, she wandered out of the office and down the hall. As befuddled as I
was, im sure that my expression showed it; to which the director automatically explained the
students situation about her social anxiety disorder; but that she was very strong academically;
yet when attending public schools was put into a special education classroom. While I was
unable to prompt a response from the student, it became overwhelmingly obvious the positive
impact that the Phoenix school was able to offer her.
I ended my interview with Ms. Morris, the director, by asking her the following question:
Do you think that the students that have succeeded would have gone as far as they have if they
hadnt joined this community? to which she replied: Id like to first say that any student that
graduates from here has already succeeded; but in regards to your question, I dont think many of

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them would have ever even considered college or the military, yet we now have one alumni
thats a commissioned officer in the Marines and multiple with college degrees from community
colleges and universities. All it took was for us to see that using the arts and a creative way of
learning for them to tap into their full potential for them to get as far as they have. Community
education cant be summed up in one sentence, but if it could, and if I had to, I would use that
sentence spoken by Ms. Morris, a true community educator that has influenced so many to go
much further than ever expected, simply by believing in their community and offering them to
embrace who they are. Perhaps thats all that is necessary for community education.
If I were to re create the event and the creation of the Phoenix School, there are a number
of things I would prefer to do differently. The first thing I would do is have a system in place for
the current students to find external sources to assist them in life after the Phoenix School. I was
given a year book from years past and found that when they spoke of what the students would do
post-graduation, many of them were unsure. They came to the Phoenix school for a new way of
learning and to have assistance in getting through their educational years, but it seems that some
of them feel that that was the furthest they would go, and Id like to see the Phoenix school
change that. While they assist them at the school, an external source would be a positive impact
on the schools community. I would also like to see a potential for growth in the school on two
levels: more academic teachers hired and more students enrolling in the school. This relies on
parents, students and teachers all being impacted in such a way that they go into the community
and allow the change that the Phoenix school has given them to allow them to continue to move
forward with their path in community education, or just community work. The more these
stakeholders get involved in the community and the work surrounding their community
because of what has been done for them at the Phoenix school, the more potential for growth.

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Sources
Stoecker, R. (2013). Research methods for community change: A project-based
approach (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Horton, M. (1998). The long haul: An autobiography. New York: Teachers College Press.